The original Broadway production of "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe" by Edward Albee opened at the Martin Beck Theater in New York on 30th October 1963 and ran for 123 performances until the play closed on 15th February 1964.
Actress Colleen Dewhurst, who had portrayed the character of Miss Amelia Evans in the original 1963-64 Broadway stage production, passed away in the same 1991 year that this movie version was first released. The Miss Amelia character is played in this filmed version by actress Vanessa Redgrave.
Vanessa Redgrave has said of this film: "George Burns [Robert A. Burns], who lectured in the English department at Austin University [in Austin, Texas], coached me for the Southern dialect and accent of Miss Amelia. Not only that, he knew how to wiggle and flap his ears, and he made an electrical device that, placed behind Cork Hubbert's ears, produced a wiggle for the camera that convinced all spectators that Cousin Lymon could flap his ears".
One of a number of collaborations of director Simon Callow with Merchant Ivory Productions (MIP) where Callow in all the other productions has worked as an actor except for The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (1991). Callow's MIP films as an actor include Maurice (1987), Howards End (1992), Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990), A Room with a View (1985) and Jefferson in Paris (1995) and as himself in In Ismail's Custody (1994).